Piggy Bank

The prosecutor in the racketeering trial of former Philippines First Lady Imelda Marcos said today the former beauty queen plundered her country and used its main bank as a "personal piggy bank." In opening statements in the trial, Assistant U.S. Atty. Debra Livingston said the case involves $140 million of stolen money illegally brought to the United States to buy four Manhattan buildings. "This is a case of theft, fraud and deceit on an incredible scale," Livingston told a packed U.S.

Four burglars who broke into a Pasadena home Friday made off with Christmas presents, piggy banks and the ashes of the homeowner's parents. Pasadena Police Lt. Jason Clawson told KTLA-TV that the burglary occurred around 1 p.m. Friday in the 900 block of North Madison Avenue. The homeowner, who only identified himself by his first name, Griffin, told KTLA that the burglars were captured on surveillance video. Griffin said all the family's Christmas presents were stolen, as were televisions and his children's piggy banks.

A 29-year-old Texas man, convicted of strangling his ex-girlfriend nine years ago, has been arrested in the murder of a West Covina man. Police arrested Gregory Martin Smith at 11:30 p.m. Monday in Ontario after matching his thumbprints with those found on a piggy bank stolen from the home of the victim, Ronnie Edward Everly, West Covina Police Cmdr. John Distelrath said.

Under the Supreme Court's wrongheaded Citizens United decision, corporate spending on independent political advertising may not be limited. So it's not surprising that Democrats are organizing two so-called super PACs, similar to ones already created by Republicans, that can raise huge amounts of money from corporations and wealthy individuals. The best that can be said about these new organizations is that they must make some disclosure of the identities of their contributors. That isn't the case with another sort of organization, known as a 501(c)

A burglar who stole an old plastic piggy bank stuffed with $75 in change has been sentenced to nine years in prison. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Howard Berman cited Henry Hatten's previous felony convictions before issuing the sentence Wednesday, ending a trial in which jurors giggled when prosecutors introduced the piggy bank as evidence. Hatten took the bank on July 15, three weeks after completing his fourth prison sentence in 10 years.

After a four-year hibernation, Penelope the Pig is back in circulation. The circulation desk of the Thousand Oaks Library, that is. Penelope, a large glass piggy bank, is gobbling up patrons' donations to use for new library supplies. All money collected this month will go for children's videos, while September donations will pay for books on tape, Deputy Library Director Steve Brogden said.

Now that Iraqi insurgents have discovered precisely where to aim their body blows at oil export facilities, Iraq is going to need all the money it can find. So it seems a pity that in its final days, the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provision Authority has gone on a shopping spree, gaily spending the hoard of Iraqi cash it controls. Like everyone else in Iraq, the insurgents have long recognized that oil, almost the country's only revenue resource, is the key to power.

Suzie Q is headed for hog heaven. She might think she's there now. She lazes in a sweet little pen at the Ventura County Fair. She chows down on a hefty supply of grain, apples and maybe even some sour milk. She's got an 11-year-old boy to clean up after her. But if she knew what he knew, she might not be so relaxed. "I'm friends with her and it's kind of sad to know she'll be slaughtered," said Michael Alcecar, a Piru 4-H member entering his second pig in competition with Suzie Q.

A coalition of Southeast area cities used a big pink piggy bank to dramatize their complaint that the state is taking the cities' redevelopment money to help balance its budget. City officials put oversized checks, representing more than $17 million in forced contributions to the state budget, in the piggy bank Thursday in Signal Hill. The protest was aimed at Gov. Pete Wilson and state legislators. "Why is this pig fat? Because all of our money is going into it," said Todd W.

The head of a city-funded African trade program used its bank account "as her own personal piggy bank," a prosecutor said Wednesday. Juanita St. John, a longtime associate of Mayor Tom Bradley, took $177,000 from the account "and spent it on her own personal life, her own personal debts," Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen S. Licker told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury during opening statements in St. John's trial on embezzlement charges.

Orange County financier Danny Pang, accused of defrauding Taiwanese investors, used their money as a "personal piggy bank" that funded a luxury lifestyle, including a $35-million fleet of jets and million-dollar cruises and vacations, a court-appointed receiver said Thursday. In his first report since a federal judge temporarily put him in charge of Pang's assets, receiver Robert P.

Re "A house is more than an ATM," Opinion, Jan. 26 A few years ago, I discovered that my domicile was more than a household -- it was, and still is, a piggy bank in disguise. This happened when the mortgage industry began bombarding me with pitches encouraging me to crack open the bank. I'll admit I was naive enough to be taken in by this new financial scheme and used the ready cash to improve the property. Once hooked, I decided to purchase a better car and create an investment account.

Now that Iraqi insurgents have discovered precisely where to aim their body blows at oil export facilities, Iraq is going to need all the money it can find. So it seems a pity that in its final days, the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provision Authority has gone on a shopping spree, gaily spending the hoard of Iraqi cash it controls. Like everyone else in Iraq, the insurgents have long recognized that oil, almost the country's only revenue resource, is the key to power.

Several Compton officials used municipal credit cards as their "personal piggy banks" to pay thousands of dollars for private expenses ranging from golf shoes to tooth repair, prosecutors told the Los Angeles County Grand Jury. Some of the officials also used the cards to charge taxpayers a second time for travel expenses that the city had already paid them for, according to newly released court documents.

From all appearances, the women nibbling bunny-shaped cookies and chatting about their children could have been gathered at a baby shower. But the table full of hand-knitted cotton sweaters and finely smocked dresses wasn't displaying newly bestowed gifts. These were samples of an exclusive European baby clothing line, Emma T., and the occasion was an invitation-only trunk show in the courtyard of Jamie Tisch's Better Things boutique in West Hollywood.

Re "Taxpayer Going Down With Ship Project," Dec. 9: How is it that billionaire businessman Samuel Zell is able to walk away scot-free from hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and then gets to dump the debt on the taxpayers? There must be some way, somehow, for the government and/or banks to make him take responsibility for his overextended scheme. The debt of over $200 million is chump change for a guy like that. If there aren't legal means to make him pay up, then he should do the right thing and relieve his debt out of his piggy bank.

Wanda Waldman's letter concerning Social Security (Jan. 13) fails to mention one factor. Congress keeps borrowing from the Social Security trust fund (OASI) and replacing that money with IOUs (government bonds) which continue to increase the national debt, which must be repaid--with interest--from the general fund by all the taxpayers. If Congress would limit its spending to its own general funds, without this borrowing, and squandering our Social Security funds as if they were a piggy bank for their pork barrel, then the Social Security and Medicare funds would be completely solvent, as they were intended to be. These "entitlements" have already been paid for, and they should be invested as they were initially intended so that they would grow and be there when required by us seniors who paid for them.

Re "A house is more than an ATM," Opinion, Jan. 26 A few years ago, I discovered that my domicile was more than a household -- it was, and still is, a piggy bank in disguise. This happened when the mortgage industry began bombarding me with pitches encouraging me to crack open the bank. I'll admit I was naive enough to be taken in by this new financial scheme and used the ready cash to improve the property. Once hooked, I decided to purchase a better car and create an investment account.

Suzie Q is headed for hog heaven. She might think she's there now. She lazes in a sweet little pen at the Ventura County Fair. She chows down on a hefty supply of grain, apples and maybe even some sour milk. She's got an 11-year-old boy to clean up after her. But if she knew what he knew, she might not be so relaxed. "I'm friends with her and it's kind of sad to know she'll be slaughtered," said Michael Alcecar, a Piru 4-H member entering his second pig in competition with Suzie Q.

The donations came from grandmothers and businessmen, from a ladies' golf club in Morro Bay and a bowling team in the Palisades, from schools and churches and Girl Scout troops . . . more than a million dollars, raised locally, now on its way to Central America to help homeless victims of Hurricane Mitch. There were dollar bills pinned to handwritten notes, corporate checks in six-figure amounts, plastic bags full of baby supplies.